Truemors
The National Lottery in the UK is currently running a 'competition' called 'The People's Millions' to determine the distribution of £50M to the 'winner' from 4 bids for funding.
These are some of a number of recent letters to newspapers,published in Cornwall, reflecting a broad consensus across Cornwall that the self-styled and somewhat misleadingly 'branded' 'eden' project has, at a figure in excess of £135M from various publicly funded sources, had more than its fair share and that it is time for the 'eden' project to support itself from its own efforts and for another social enterprise to receive this funding.
The other projects bidding for the £50M all of which, being primarily 'doorstep' projects, have the prospect of generating significantly smaller carbon footprints than the long distance fossil-fuelled visitor dependent 'eden' project are:
The Sustrans Connect2 National Cycle Network
Sherwood Forest Restoration & Replanting - 300 Hectares
Concern has been expressed in some quarters that the whole affair has been orchestrated by a clique within the London establishment to secure the funds for their pet 'greenwash' 'eden' project, which has a highly lubricated and longer established slick and persuasive PR spinning machine, under cover of a seeming 'open' competition.
There is widespread opinion in Cornwall that the 'eden' project has had enough public money. Perhaps its leadership will muster the integrity and morality to step aside and let one of the other projects get off to a flying start.
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Most RecentMost Recommended Comments (2)
at 04:42 on May 16th, 2009
Unfortunately, I have had the mispleasure of reading your comments made on the Eden Project receiving the funds, and I am therefore not going to attempt to make any comment in defence of Eden, as your tightcast viewpoint is very unlikely to be willing to change. However, I would point out that Heligan is also linked to Eden, as it was the aspirations of Tim Smit for one when working at Heligan to bring together a collection of plants from around the world. Furthermore, after visiting both Heligan and Eden, I cannot see what the problem is. If you arrive at Eden with a tightcast viewpoint then you are clearly not going to enjoy it or get the best from the project. From your comments indicating Heligan is more 'child friendly' (when I might point out that Heligan is not actually aimed at children, unlike Eden, where stories and resources are provided to support children), I assume your children did understand what Eden was about, rather than simply taking on board your views? If you want a visitor attraction to amuse children, and are unwilling to adapt to the situation and explain/support your children, I suggest you try a slightly simpler attraction, like the beach, or maybe an animal attraction?
Furthermore, on inspection of the other 3 competitors for the money, the only project that may have came close to Edens bid is that of the Sherwood Forest. As it happens, Sustrans 2 won the £50million. After travelling the country quite frequently for business, all I would ask - where is your closest 'Sustrans Connect' cycle path? £50 million for an 'invisible' project, or £50 for an education, supportive project, that has currently netted Cornwall as a whole over £900 million pounds in income from tourism?
at 14:27 on July 10th, 2009
Dave - Please provide you evidence for this statement:
'that has currently netted Cornwall as a whole over £900 million pounds in income from tourism?'
Would you also care to estimate the contribution to global warming generated by all those fossil-fuel fuelled tourists?